Hair stylists apply various compositions to a person's hair to enable it to hold a setting when the styling is complete. Various compositions provide different abilities to hold a setting, and various compositions may be used on different types of hair to obtain a desired effect.
No one has previously developed a satisfactory quantitative technique for determining the "hold factor" or ability of a composition to hold a styling when used in a salon. The most satisfactory technique has relied on the skill and experience of the operators who can feel the effect of the composition when the styling is complete. Although this may be satisfactory for a salon setting so that the operator knows that the desired effect has been obtained, it is not sufficiently quantitative for development of new products and is too cumbersome for comparison of existing products. Further, the variability of hair makes comparison of tests almost infeasible because of absence of controls.
A variety of tests have been attempted but none have proved satisfactory for determining the holding efficacy of a variety of compositions. For example, tensile tests of single strands or tresses of hair do not correlate well with results obtained in a salon setting. It is therefore desirable to provide a simple, reliable, repeatable test for the holding ability of various compositions.